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Calendar No, 606. 

Congress, ) SENATE. J Report 

1 Session. f (No. 675. 



TO PROTECT MIGRATORY GAME AND INSECTIVOROUS 
BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



April 26. 1912. — Ordered to be printed. 



Mr. McLean, from the Committee on Forest Reservations and 
the Protection of Game, submitted the following 

REPORT. 

[To accompany S. G497.] 

The Committee on Forest Reservations and the Protection of Game, 
to whom was referred the bill (S. 6497) to protect migratory game 
and insectivorous birds of the United States, submit the following 
favorable report thereon: 

For many years the necessity and importance of effective protec- 
tion for the bird life of this and other nations has been apparent to 
ornithologists and all others who have interested themselves in the 
subject. 

The several States of the Union have enacted many laws prohibit- 
ing and regulating the killing of birds, but the strong temptation 
pressing upon every State to secure its full share of edible game birds 
during the spring and fall migrations has rendered harmonious and 
effective State supervision impossible. 

Game commissioners and other officials representing 43 of the 48 
States of the Union, together with some of the leading ornithologists 
of the country, appeared before your committee, and their testimony,, 
based upon years of experience and practical observation, was con- 
clusive to the fact that State control of migratory birds must, from 
the very nature of the surrounding temptations and conditions, end 
in failure. 

Conceding the necessity of Federal regulation and the willingness 
of Congress to exert its power to prevent the extermination of the 
useful migratory birds, the question of the extent and nature of that 
power was at once raised and very carefully considered by your 
committee. 

The nations of Europe have for many years been alive to the neces- 
sity of the protection of bird life by treaties, regulations, and interna- 
tional declarations and conventions. As early as 1873, the Congress 
of Agriculturists and Foresters moved, "that the Imperial Austrian 



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2 TO PROTECT MIGRATORY GAME. 

Government be requested to secure the protection of birds by means 
of treaties with other States of Europe." 

In 1875, Germany, Austria, and Italy entered into a joint declara- 
tion for the protection of birds. Since that time international orni- 
thological congresses have been held in London, Paris, Budapest, and 
Vienna. In 1906, 11 European powers ratified an international agree- 
ment consisting of 11 articles, which formed a comprehensive code 
for the protection of birds. 

The fact that several States of the Union have, up k) date, exercised 
the right to regulate the taking of both migratory and nonmigratory 
birds where no discrimination or distinction has been suggested or 
desired does not preclude the Nation from asserting its right to pro- 
tect migratory birds whenever conditions make such protection 
necessary. A dormant and unused power in a nation may be asserted 
at any time. 

The power of the Federal Government to regulate by treaty the 
taking of migratory seals and fish can not be questioned, and your 
committee can see no distinction between the right to regulate by 
law and treaty the taking of seals and fish that to-day may be in the 
waters of one State or Nation and to-morrow in the waters of another 
State or Nation, and the right to regulate the taking of wild birds 
whose habitat changes from one State or Nation to another with the 
changing seasons. 

The printed report of hearings before your committee, a copy of 
which has been sent to every Member of the Senate, contains the 
argument of able lawyers in support of the conclusions reached by 
your committee. In many of the States of the Union spring shooting 
is allowed and there are hundreds of sporting clubs in the United 
States where the shooting is exclusively confined to the spring months. 

Some Reasons why this Congress Should Pass this Bill. 

The destruction of game birds for food has been enormous and 
ruthless during the past 40 years. There are many living now who 
remember when all of the markets of the East were glutted with 
partridge, quail, prairie chickens, and wild water fowls, and an enor- 
mous game business was carried on by provision dealers. Few accu- 
rate statistics of the amount of game sold are obtainable, but Mr. D. 
G. Elliot, in the report of the United States Commissioner of Agri- 
culture for the year 1864, says: 

One dealer in New York was known to have received 20 tons of prairie chickens in 
one consignment, and some of the larger poultry dealers are estimated to have sold 
from 150,000 to 200,000 game birds in six months. 

VALUE OF INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 

Anyone who has read recent estimates of the decrease in insectiv- 
orous birds and the increase of herbivorous insects can readily believe 
that as the mammals succeeded reptiles insects will soon possess the 
earth unless some agency is discovered to cheek their increase. 

We are prone to bear the usual and slowly accumulating burdens 
with dull resignation and patience. The life and property losses and 
taxes that are inherited and constant we take for granted. It is the 
concentrated and unusual calamities that shock and excite the spirit 



TO PEOTECT MIGRATORY GAME. 3 

of opposition and the desire to prevent a reoccurrence. By the sink- 
ing of the Titanic 1,300 lives were lost, and the world was filled with 
^s fear and sympathy. Tuberculosis claims 190,000 victims a year in 
this country and pneumonia 160,000, yet we bear this awful loss of 
life with the passing comment, that it is a great pity. 

The San Francisco earthquake destroyed property to the value of 
$400,000,000. This loss was the superinducing cause of the panic of 
1907, which reduced values by the billions. If it were known to-day 
that the country would suffer another such loss within its borders in 
the year 1912, the wheels of progress the world over would halt in 
sympathetic fear. 

A short time ago the farmers of the country, especially in the North- 
west, were much agitated because of the proposed reciprocity agree- 
ment with Canada. The loss which they, together with other farmers 
of the country, will suifer this year and which will benefit no one will 
exceed by hundreds of millions of dollars the total value of the entire 
wheat crop of the nation. 

As long ago as 1904 Dr. C. L. Marlatt, basing his estimates on the 
crop reports of the United States Department of Agriculture, asserted 
that the loss to the agricultural industries in that year, caused by 
insects alone, could be conservatively placed at $795,100,000, and this 
estimate docs not include a dollar for the use of insecticides. 

Mr. Forbush, in his most comprehensive book entitled "Useful 
Birds," maintains that the insect pests destroy agricultural products 
to the value of $800,000,000 a year. We use large numbers so freely 
in these days, both in science and finance, that hundreds of millions 
mean no more to us than hundreds of thousands did a few years ago. 
There are about 600 colleges in the United States to-day. Their 
buildings and endowments have been centuries in accumulation. 
The value of the college and university buildings is estimated at 
.$-'60,000, 000 and the endowments at $219,000,000. If they should be 
destroyed to-morrow — buildings and endowments — the insect tax of 
one year would replace them and leave a balance sufficient to endow 
32 new universities in the sum of $10,000,000 each. 

We have in this country to-day about 20,000,000 school children, 
and the cost of their education has become by far the heaviest tax 
laid upon the surplus of the country, yet it costs more by many mil- 
lions to feed our insects than it does to educate our children. If there 
is any way in which this vast and destructive tax upon the national 
income can be prevented or stayed or resisted in any appreciable 
measure it would seem to be the part of wisdom to act without delay. 

For many years individuals, at their own expense, and voluntary 
societies and representatives of the civilized nations the world over 
have studied and estimated the value of birds to the human race. 
We call attention at this time to but a few of the estimates made, and 
such as seem to be fair and reliable, but enough, we think, to prove 
that in this country at least we have ruthlessly disturbed, if not 
destroyed, one of nature's wisest and most valuable balances between 
the birds and their natural food, and it is clear to those informed upon 
this subject that unless radical and immediate measures are adopted 
to restore a sure, safe, and natural equilibrium between insectivorous 
birds and their foods the time will soon come wdien the annual loss 
caused by insects to agriculture in this country alone will be counted 
in billions instead of millions of dollars. 



4 TO PROTECT MIGRATORY GAME. 

Most insects, like the green leaf louse, or aphis, so destructive to 
the hop industry and many other of our most valuable fruits and 
vegetables, reproduce their kind at the rate of ten sextillion to the 
pair in one season. This number means 40,000 for every square inch 
of land that is above water. Placed in Indian file, 10 to the inch, it 
would take light, traveling at the rate of 180,000 miles per second, 
2,500 years to reach the file leader. 

The potato bug is less fecund. One pair will reproduce from 
fifty to sixty millions only in a season. The natural increase of one 
pair of gipsy moths would defoliate the United States in eight years. 

These estimates I quote from Prof. Forbush, who in turn gathered 
them from the United States Biological Survey, and we may say that 
these cases are fair examples of the reproductive powers of the 
insectile world. Locusts, army worm, and chinch bugs, unless 
checked in procreation soon become countless hordes, devastating 
wide areas of the earth's surface. 

It is to be remembered that insects live to eat. Some of them 
increase their size at birth 10,000 times in 30 days. Dr. Lintner, of 
the New Jersey Board of Agriculture, reports 176 species of insects 
attacking the apple tree. (U. S. Biological Survey.) About the 
same number attack the peach, plum, and cherry trees. Dr. Packard 
finds 400 species feeding upon the oak; 300 attack the conifera. 
The number feeding upon cereals, grains, and garden crops is also 
very large. 

The reports of the Bureau of Entomology show that destruction 
by some insects is widely spread and are increasing. Dr. Marlatt 
estimates that the loss to the wheat-growing States in 1904 occasioned 
by the Hessian fly was about $50,000,000. Dr. Shinar estimates the 
damage done to crops in the Mississippi Valley caused by the chinch 
bug in one year as high as $100,000,000. The Rocky Mountain 
locusts, in years of their greatest activity, caused the States of the 
Northwest more than $150,000,000. Dr. Lintner estimates the 
annual loss to farmers caused by cut -worms at $100,000,000. The 
terrible loss of $800,000,000 a year is fairly easy of proof. 

That the worm does not eat everything that grows is due to sev- 
eral causes — weather, parasites, fungi, insect diseases, insectivorous 
birds, and mechanically applied poisons, which are expensive, 
unnatural, and dangerous. However large may be the share of para- 
sites, fungi, and weather in checking the increase of destructive 
insects, investigation shows that it is lamentably insufficient, and the 
briefs of the bird defenders pretty clearly indicate that the birds 
have been, are, and will be without question one of the most impor- 
tant agencies in staying the inroads of insect devastation. Men who 
have had this subject at heart and in hand for many years assert that 
bird life is one of the most indispensable balancing forces of nature. 

We cite a few instances in support of the foregoing. All birds eat, 
and most of them eat most of the time, and they eat insects and little 
else. The old bird has just as keen an appetite as the young bird, and 
he is much larger and his daily ration is almost incredible. 

Mr. Treadwell, of the Boston Society of Natural History, fed a 
young robin 68 angle or earth worms in one day. Mr. Nash, of the 
Ontario Department of Agriculture, fed a robin 70 cutworms a day 
for 15 days. A young crow will eat twice its weight a day of almost 
anything that happens to be brought before him. The State ornithol- 



TO PROTECT MIGRATORY GAME. 5 

ogist of Massachusetts, Mr. Forbush, by careful and painstaking 
observation has collected much reliable information on this subject. 
He has seen two parent grosbeaks in 11 hours make 450 trips to their 
nests carrying two or more larvae at a time. Sparrows, chickadees, 
vireos, martens, and warblers made from 40 to 60 trips an hour with 
their beaks filled with all manner of insects. Under the supervision of 
the United States Biological Survey the crops of 3,500 birds were 
examined. Thirty grasshoppers and 250 caterpillars were found in the 
crops of cuckoos. In the crop of a nighthawk were found 60 grass- 
hoppers and in another 500 mosquitoes; 38 cutworms were found in 
the crop of a blackbird; 70 cankerworms were found in the crop of a 
cedar bird. Prof. Tschudi estimates the diet of a song sparrow at 
1,500 larvae a day. 

Mr. Forbush estimates that a single yellow-throated warbler will 
consume 10,000 aphids or tree lice in a day. Scarlet tanagers have 
been seen to eat 35 gypsy moths a minute for 18 minutes at a time. 

To quote further from Mr. Forbush on Birds : 

More than 50 kinds of birds feed upon different varieties of caterpillars: 38 varieties 
are known to feed upon devastating plant lice. 

Mr. McAtee, of the United States Biological Survey, reports that several of the 
most destructive species of scale insects are the food of not less than 50 kinds of birds . 
Beetles, cutworms, grubs, borers, locusts, grasshoppers, crickets, in fact most all of the 
injurious insects are food for a very great majority of the different kinds of birds. 

It is the general belief that the so-called game birds are seed rather than insect 
eaters. The fact is that the bulk of food of most of this class of birds consists of insects 
when insects are to be had. 

The quail, though not a migratory bird, and, therefore, not within the scope of the 
pending bill should, however, be carefully protected by State legislation. It feeds 
upon locusts, chinchbugs, cotton worms, cotton-boll weevils, army worms, Colorado 
potato beetles, striped cucumber beetles, grasshoppers, ground beetles, and many 
others. The young feed almost entirely upon insects. Such seeds as they eat are 
largely those of the harmful weeds as ragweed, smartweed, red sorrel, mercury, pig- 
weed, and the like. If the quail can be protected and become numerous and fearless, 
they would become the most useful assistants and allies of the farmer. 

This is true in a great measure of the partridge or ruffled grouse, snipe, plover, sand- 
piper, woodcock, wood duck, and black duck, once so common all along the shores of 
our streams and pools. They were formerly great insect eaters, but they have been 
so persecuted by the hunters that they hardly now ever live there. 

Prairie chickens, like the grouse and wild turkey, feed their growing 
young almost entirely upon insects and the mature birds prefer this 
diet. 

We quote from Prof. Forbush a few instances of crops saved from 
destruction by birds : 

In Pomerania an immense forest was in danger of being utterly ruined by cater- 
pillars and was unexpectedly saved by cuckoos, which though on the point of migrating 
established themselves there for weeks and so thoroughly cleared the trees that next 
year neither depredators nor depredations were seen. 

In Europe, in 1848, there was a great outbreak of gypsy moths. The hand of man 
seemed powerless to work off the affliction, but on the approach of the winter titmice 
and wrens paid daily visits to the infested trees, and before spring the eggs of the 
moths were entirely destroyed. 

According to "Reaumer," the larvae of the gypsy moth were at one time so numerous 
on the Limes at Brussels that many of the great trees were nearly defoliated. The 
moths swarmed like bees in the summer. If one-half of the eggs had hatched the 
following spring scarcely a leaf would have remained in these favorite places of public 
resort. Two months later scarcely an egg cluster would be found. This happy result 
was attributed to the titmice and creepers, which were seen busily running up and 
down the tree trunks. 

In 1892 Australia was afflicted with incursions of immense clouds of locusts. In 
Glen Thompson district several large flocks of ibis were seen eating the young locusts 



6 TO PROTECT MIGRATORY GAME. 

in a wholesale manner. Near Victoria swarms of locusts were seen in a paddock. 
Just as it was feared that all the sheep would have to be sold for want of grass, starlings, 
spoonbills, and cranes made their appearance and in a few days made so complete a 
destruction of the locusts that but a few acres of grass were lost. 

When Utah was settled, the first year's crop was almost utterly destroyed by myriads 
of crickets that came down from the mountains. The first crop having been almost 
destroyed, they had sowed seed for the second year. The crop promised well, but 
when the crickets appeared the people were in danger of starvation. In describing 
the condition Mr. George Q. Cannon said: "Black crickets came down by millions 
and destroyed our grain crops, promising fields of wheat in the morning were by 
evening as smooth as a man's hand — devoured by insects. At this juncture, sea 
gulls came by thousands, and before the crops were entirely destroyed, these gulls 
devoured the crickets, so that our fields were entirely free from them." Several 
times afterwards the crops were attacked by the crickets and were saved by the gulls. 

In 1865 locusts hatched out in countless numbers in Nebraska. Some fields of corn and 
wheat were entirely destroyed by them. A large field of corn near Dacotah City was 
literally covered with locusts, and there were indications that not a stalk would escape. 
About this time, blackbirds appeared in large numbers and made this field their 
feeding ground. The locusts gradually disappeared. Although the crop had to be 
replanted, it was due to the birds that a crop was raised at all. Many fields were 
saved with but slight loss by the work of blackbirds, plover, quail, and prairie chickens. 

A severe outbreak of forest tent caterpillars occurred in New York and parts of New 
England in 1898. Thousands of acres of woodland were devastated, and great damage 
was done to the sugar maple orchards of New York and Vermont. Birds — warblers 
orioles, sparrows, robins, cuckoos, cedar birds, and many others — attacked the cater- 
pillars vigorously, and by 1900 the plague had been so reduced that the injury was 
not seen. 

Increase of insects and damage by them follows destruction of birds. Frederick of 
Prussia, being particularly fond of cherries, was annoyed to see the sparrows destroy- 
ing his favorite fruit. An edict was issued ordering sparrow extermination. The 
campaign against the birds was so successful that not only werr the sparrows destroyed, 
but many other birds were either killed or driven away. Within two years, cherries 
and most other fruits were wanting. The trees were defoliated by caterpillars and 
other insects and the King, seeing his error, imported sparrows to take the place of 
those that had been killed. 

A lew years since, the harvests of France began to fail. A commission to investigate 
the cause of the deficiency was appointed by the minister of agriculture. This com- 
mission took counsel with experienced naturalists and the deficiency was attributed 
to the ravages of insects that it is the function of birds to destroy. It seems that the 
French people had been killing and eating not only the game birds, but the smaller 
birds as well. Birds' eggs had been taken in immense numbers. A single child 
had been known to come in at night with a hundred eggs. The number of eggs of 
birds destroyed in the country annually was estimated to be from eighty to one hundred 
millions. Before such persecution the birds were rapidly disappearing. As an ap- 
parent result of the destruction of the birds, the vines, fruit trees, foresl trees, grain 
and field crops were suffering much from destructive insects. It was concluded that 
by no other agency than the birds could the ravages of insects be kept down and the 
commission called for prompt and energetic remedies to prevent the destruction 
of birds. 

The greatest losses from the ravages of the Rocky Mountain locust were coincident 
with or followed soon after the destruction by the people of countless thousands of 
blackbirds, prairie chickens, quail, upland plover, curlew, and other birds. This 
coincidence is significant at least. Prof. Aughey tells how this slaughter was accom- 
plished. Vast numbers of them were poisoned with strychnine in and around the 
cornfields. It was done under the belief that the blackbirds were damaging the corn 
crop, but a great number of birds of other species were destroyed as well as the black- 
birds. 

In Dakota < 'ounty, in Nebraska, in one autumn, not less than 30,000 birds must have 
been destroyed. Prof. Aughey writes thus of this destruction: "Supposing that each 
of these 30,000 birds ate 150 insects daily, we then have the enormous number of 
135,000,000 insects saved in this one county in one month that ought to have been 
destroyed by the agency of birds." When we consider that most of these birds were 
migratory, and that they would have been busy in other regions the rest of the time 
in helping to keep down the increase of insects, the harm that their destruction did 
is beyond computation. The killing of such birds is not a local, it is a national, a 
continental loss 



TO PROTECT MIGRATORY GAME. i 

All of the foregoing evidence goes to demonstrate the existence of a 
natural economic relation between these three orders of life. There 
is a sort of interdependence, and the existence of each one is depend- 
ent upon the existence of the others. But for the vegetation the 
insects would perish, and but for the insects the birds would perish, 
and but for the birds the vegetation would be utterly destroyed by 
the unchecked increase of insect destroyers. 

It is the earnest recommendation of your committee that the 
pending bill receive favorable consideration. 

o 



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